[winner3000]

Before this book came out, Mapes could say that she was duped and she didn't mean to edit a story that happened to turn out to be a fraud.

With the publishing of her book, now that she knows way more information, Mapes is sticking with her story. This proves beyond a shadow of the doubt that she wasn't merely duped, she was an active participant in the fraud and to this day is trying to foist the fraud on the American people. Her word no longer means anything, her credibility is zilch, and nobody should ever trust her.

[dbehsman]

I am beginning to wonder if "Lucy Ramirez" is in reality Mary Mapes. Mary could have had some financial motives behind this mess. It's a possibility, and I guess it really wouldn't shock me.



I pulled the following off the Powerline blog:
Finally, on August 31, only eight days before the 60 Minutes show aired, at a time when Smith and Mapes were desperately trying to persuade Bill Burkett to give them the anti-Bush documents that they had heard he possessed, Smith sent an email to Mapes proposing that they set up a book deal for Burkett so that he could be paid in exchange for turning over the documents:

Today I am going to send the following hypothetical scenario to a reliable, trustable editor friend of mine...

What if there was a person who might have some information that could possibly change the momentum of an election but we needed to get an ASAP book deal to help get us the information? What kinds of turnaround payment schedules are possible, keeping in mind that the book probably could not make it out until after the election.

Mapes replied: "that looks good, hypothetically speaking, of course." Burkett quickly produced the documents, and CBS rushed the story to air.